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Republicans in southern Alabama have asked the United States Supreme Court to approve a congressional election map that they previously ruled to be racially discriminatory.
On Wednesday, the state’s Republican leadership asked the Supreme Court to issue a ruling by Monday to allow the map to be used in the 2026 midterm elections.
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Earlier, in 2023, the Supreme Court refused to overturn a lower court decision, which said the map violated the racial discrimination laws of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
For a long time, this law was one of the few laws that prevented apportionment, also known as gerrymandering.
While there is currently no law that prohibits lawmakers from redrawing congressional maps to give their parties an advantage, the Voting Rights Act contained a section that prohibits politicians from disqualifying representatives based on race or minority.
But last month, in the Louisiana v. Callais case, the United States Supreme Court weakened the Voting Rights Act’s applicability to redistricting.
States like Alabama are resuming congressional maps that have been plagued by racial discrimination.
Alabama’s push back
In the case of Alabama, three judges in 2023 found that the Republican administration has deliberately reduced the political power of blacks, who tend to lean Democratic.
The group decided that the state should have two Black-majority districts: one that includes the city of Birmingham, and the other that includes the state capital, Montgomery.
But in court Wednesday, Alabama Republicans said the group’s decision was no longer valid, according to an April Supreme Court ruling.
Instead it forced a redistricting plan rejected in 2023, combining most of the state’s black voters into one district.
In their petition to the Supreme Court, Republican leaders said swift action was necessary to prevent “irreparable harm” to their push for secession.
“At worst, voters will be forced to vote under a court map that is anti-segregationist and does not serve Alabama’s legitimate goals,” they wrote.
If the rejected map is reinstated, Governor Kay Ivey has already said new primaries are held in four of the state’s seven districts to show new boundaries.
The primaries were already held statewide on May 19, but voters in Alabama’s first, second, sixth and seventh districts must cast their ballots on August 11.
The winners of those primaries will go on to compete in the November midterm elections.
But a Republican-led push to redraw the congressional map hit a snag Tuesday, when a lower court rejected the 2023 redistricting map.
“The court saw Alabama’s covert attempt to restore a race-based congressional map that the legislature deliberately set up to keep black people out of Congress,” the plaintiffs said Tuesday, released by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
New maps from around the world
Alabama’s congressional district battle highlights a hotly contested race for control of the US House of Representatives in November’s midterm elections.
Republicans hold both houses of Congress with a minority. As a result, the results of several elections may sway both chambers to the left or to the right.
Currently, 217 Republicans make up the majority in the House, out of a possible 435 seats.
Last year, with the November midterm elections around the corner, Republican President Donald Trump began pushing his party to withdraw the privilege.
In June 2025, reports began to appear that the Trump White House contacted Texas state legislators to urge them to submit new congressional maps, which would involve voters in a way that would limit the Democratic victory.
In general, redistricting occurs once every ten years, reflecting changes in population that occur as a result of the census.
But Texas Republicans’ decision to go ahead with Trump’s plans and redraw the congressional map has sparked a nationwide redistricting battle.
In August, Texas released a new redistricting map to help Republicans pick up five additional House seats in the midterms.
California, a Democratic stronghold, responded by putting a ballot measure in front of voters to redraw its congressional districts to help left-leaning candidates win. That proposal passed in November 2025.
Other countries have followed suit. After the April Supreme Court decision, Tennessee has moved to redraw its congressional map to destroy the Democratic district that includes the city of Memphis, while Louisiana Republicans have also announced plans to redraw its map.
Some countries, however, have resisted Trump’s central push. South Carolina, for example, proposed a ban earlier this week, as party-line early voting began in the state.
Trump, however, cast the results of the midterm races as a potential challenge to his presidency.
“You have to win the middle because, if we don’t win the middle, it’s just going to be – I mean, they’re going to find a reason to challenge me,” He told Republican leaders in January. “I will be condemned.”
